find a way to stop you from drowning, pull you back and take your place, let the pain take me over.

God, please just let me take the pain away before it kills me because I can’t watch you drown anymore.

Because I need you. I want you. I can’t live without you.

The pitch of his voice is a little uneven at the end, but it still sounds beautiful and his fingers keep playing, his eyes still shut.

Know that no matter what happens

through the hurt, the sadness, the burning ache inside my chest

I’ll always be with you, inside and out.

Through hard times and helpless ones, through love, through doubt

my heart is yours forever. I’ll never let go. I’ll never let you sink.

I’ll carry your pain if you just let me.

God, please just let me.

His voice drifts off as he plucks a sequence of notes and then finishes the song. He sits quietly for a moment, his chest rising and falling before he opens his eyes. Then he takes one look at me and his eyes widen in alarm.

“Shit.” He shoves the guitar aside and scoots across the bed toward me. “Baby, you don’t need to cry. It wasn’t supposed to be a sad song.”

I touch my fingers to my cheeks and they’re soaked with tears. I hadn’t even realized I was crying or when I began to, but I’m guessing probably from the start because each word hit me powerfully in the heart.

“I’m not sad,” I tell him, wiping the tears away with my hand. “I just didn’t know you felt like that all the way back when you were fifteen. It means you felt like that for a really long time.”

He traces his fingers down my cheeks, erasing the tears, but the feelings behind them still linger in me and I’m glad. “I couldn’t even understand the lyrics myself at first, but when I finally did I realized I loved you and I’d do anything to make you happy.”

More tears flow from me and I don’t even try to hold them back—I couldn’t even if I tried. Too much emotion was in that song and it still burns in my heart, too fresh, raw, but in the most wonderfully real way. I think about all those years where it was just him and me and all the many more years we have ahead of us.

As I climb onto his lap, I circle my arms around him and hug him tightly. “Just so you know, you were the one who didn’t let me drown. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would have given up,” I say and he rubs his hand up and down my back. “And I’m glad you didn’t let me.”

Chapter 21

Micha